Ranjit Singh Neeta is the leader of the Khalistan Zindabad Force, a separatist outfit that wants a separate Khalistan state.

Though the Khalistan movement faded in the early 1990s, this group is said to have joined hands with Kashmir militants.<>
Intelligence agencies believe that Neeta, originally a resident of the Sumbal Camp area in Jammu, is now is Lahore and his name was among the 20 people who the Indian government claimed were in Pakistan and asked Islamabad to hand them over.

Neeta began his career as a small-time criminal and subsequently developed links with smugglers in the RS Pora and Samba areas. His name figures in at least six First Information Reports filed after bomb blasts on trains and buses running between Jammu and Pathankot between 1988 and 1999.

He is also alleged to have been involved in the killing of Deputy Superintendent of Police Devinder Sharma in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir in October 2001.

Not much is known about Neeta's recent activities. So is the case with the capabilities of this group. However, some of the strikes in Punjab, New Delhi and Kashmir have been attributed to this group; though not much is in hand by way of hard evidence.

In December 2005, the European Union declared the KZF as a terrorist organization and froze funding for the group in EU countries.

Image: A Sikh demonstrates outside India House in London, call for recognition and independence of Khalistan.
Photograph: Jonathan Utz/AFP/Getty Images